Far-right author sentenced to jail for contempt of court

DAVID IRVING, the far-right historian, has been sentenced to three months' jail for contempt of the High Court.

Mr Justice Brooke issued a warrant for the arrest of the 'revisionist' historian, saying he was satisfied that Irving was guilty of contempt. The sentence will begin from the time Irving is apprehended. The Hitler apologist had failed to comply with a court order demanding that he disclose all his assets to the London solicitors of a German publisher.

On an application by the Hamburg publishers, Rowohlt Verlag, Irving had been ordered on 20 December last year to set out details of his assets in an affidavit within seven days.

Irving's dispute with Rowohlt Verlag centres on a 1985 agreement that he would deliver a biography of Winston Churchill within nine months.

The historian was paid an advance of DM150,000 (about pounds 50,000) on royalties for the volumes but it was alleged he had failed to keep to the deadline for the second volume.